Saturday, March 28, 2009

The World is Changing. . . or changed

I don’t know why I’m still surprised whenever Canada loses in a world curling championship, but I am.So when Jennifer Jones lost to Anette Norberg yesterday (or is it today?), in the 3-vs-4 game, it was news. I’m still living in the last century when Canada always seemed to win the worlds. Of course, it didn’t back then either, but it sure seemed like it. Some day soon, we in Canada are going to realize that when a team like China, comes to Canada, spends six days a week, eight hours a day training and practicing, they are eventually going to catch up and pass our top players who have to put in long hours at the salt mine before they get to go and throw rocks. Actually, they’ve already done the catching up part and the passing will come soon at this rate. ***By the way, I know it’s great to take the world championships all over the place and expose curling to new folks, but when no one bothers to show up what’s the point? Looking at James Bisson’s piece from Korea makes you wonder who in the WCF got the smart idea that one of curling’s biggest events should be held in a country where the sport is virtually unknown. I mean, is the point of all this so some folks can stand up at the next WCF meeting and say, “Aren’t we great? We held a world championship in Korea.” Then they can all hold hands and sing “We Are The World.”